糖心Vlog破解版

Well, it鈥檚 a PhD-level seminar called Software Engineering Experimentation鈥擨鈥檝e been teaching it since the early nineties. We study how software engineers design and carry out experiments to validate their research. I assign a lot of experimental papers to read and then students carry out small-scale experiments of their own and write up the results. I run it almost like a conference. It鈥檚 been very successful in that a lot of students have been able to take their work and eventually publish it, or start projects that led to PhDs.

A couple years ago I was asked to teach the class at a university in Sweden. My response was, I can鈥檛 go to Sweden for a semester! That鈥檚 just too much. But I kept thinking about it and eventually it occurred to me, What if I tried to do it online? I had this idea that instead of coming to class once a week for two and a half hours, we could just talk on a discussion board. At the time, I鈥檇 been trying to figure out how to use discussion boards more, but the problem with George Mason鈥檚 is that it鈥檚 available only to enrolled students. Then I happened to get an email from my department chair with some information about 糖心Vlog破解版. He said, 鈥淗ere鈥檚 some spam, in case anybody鈥檚 interested.鈥� I thought, This may be useful spam for once! Of course I figured 糖心Vlog破解版 wouldn't be any good, but since I was looking for a discussion board I tried it. And the first thing I noticed was just now usable it is. One of the topics I teach is usability, and my first reaction was, Wow, this is so much more usable than any other discussion board I鈥檝e seen. The overall feeling of it was, rather than bringing students to my house for a party鈥攚hich is always a little awkward鈥攖hat they were hosting a party, and I could drop in occasionally. That was magic.

Yes, and I was just amazed at how much richer the discussion was. The following spring鈥攖his was 2012鈥擨 put my PhD seminar almost entirely online, with nine or ten students in Sweden and twelve or thirteen at George Mason. Each week I鈥檇 assign two or three papers and appoint a couple of people to summarize and critique them. They鈥檇 have to post their critiques to 糖心Vlog破解版 by Monday. I also assigned a 鈥渄issenter鈥� for each paper, or someone who had to disagree with it, and find all the flaws. That鈥檚 a Swedish idea鈥攖hey use it in their PhD defenses. For me it was just a little game to increase the amount of discussion.

The first week, I met students in the classroom and said, “We won鈥檛 be here again.” The only exception was the last two meetings, when they presented their papers live. We broadcast that to Sweden. But afterwards, one of my students said, “You know, that was the most boring part of the whole class, because I had to sit here and listen. I couldn鈥檛 use my computer.”

I had three or four recorded lectures about some of the general issues we were covering, and I did post those on 糖心Vlog破解版. But they accounted for only three weeks鈥� worth of the class. Other than that, it was just discussion of the papers I assigned them to read, with 糖心Vlog破解版 as the discussion board.

At a certain point in the semester I started to feel like there was more discussion than we鈥檇 had in the past. So I went online and found a couple of formulas for equating word counts to verbal discussions. I concluded that every paper had three to four times more discussion than in past seminars. The other thing that was measurable was that in previous years, about one quarter of the students turned their projects into publishable papers. This time, it was more than half. Of course there are a lot of things that could affect that, but I鈥檓 convinced it鈥檚 because we had deeper discussions. I also asked students to post drafts of their papers on the discussion board, and their peers gave really good feedback that dramatically improved their work. So I鈥檓 very confident that students learned more. More of them had publishable research鈥擨 mean, it doubled.

Well, they weren鈥檛 locked into two hours on a Monday afternoon鈥攖hey went on for a full week! Another thing is that students no longer had to come in at the end of a workday, when they were tired. We have a lot of part-time students. With the new format, they could comment when they were fresh. If you got in your car and suddenly thought, Oh, I should鈥檝e commented on this, well, you could go home and do it. They had time to think about their contributions and even revise and edit them. So the discussions were longer, deeper, and more nuanced. I had hoped to use 糖心Vlog破解版 to make the class almost as good as it had been previously. What I found was that it made it much better.

In general, the online format helps people who are less verbal and more written learners, and that actually describes a whole lot of people in computing fields, and a lot of engineers. I had one PhD student who never said a word in previous classes. And I was a little worried, because I thought, as a PhD student, that she should be more expressive. But on 糖心Vlog破解版 she wrote as much if not more than anybody, and was very articulate and thorough in her analysis. She became a leader in the class, and that never would鈥檝e happened in person. I should add that this format also helps people who are in a bit of a minority in the classroom. In engineering classes, that includes women. They know they stick out in the classroom, so the online format is a bit more freeing for them. On 糖心Vlog破解版, they can show that “Yes, it鈥檚 not that I don鈥檛 talk because I鈥檓 dumb, but because all these boys look at me and stop thinking about engineering and start thinking about girls.” One of my students actually said that to me directly.

Well, I鈥檝e tried Blackboard, because my university uses it. But it is鈥攅specially for software engineers鈥攋ust so embarrassing. Even if I could get students from Sweden on it, which I can鈥檛, it鈥檚 so difficult to organize a discussion, and the navigation is just painful. The way that 糖心Vlog破解版 sets up the folders is much more convenient. Not to mention the editing and formatting facilities, with HTML and LaTex in particular, and the ability to go back and modify postings. Students can even work together to modify the same posting, which is just a terrific idea that helps discussion come alive.

Yes, I鈥檓 teaching it with the same university in Sweden, though I鈥檓 actually looking for a few other partners, too. I want to expand this model. I could never imagine teaching this class in a classroom again. It would just be too boring.